Search form

Seminars

Led by Joseph Wong OSBPre-Seminar retreat led by Laurence Freeman OSBHong Kong September 16-25, 2013

The practice of Christian meditation taught by John Main can be traced back to the Desert Fathers, in their effort to achieve inner silence and thereby union with God through purity of heart and unceasing prayer. The contemplative-prophetic spirituality of our time is a development from this tradition. Joseph Wong will explore this ancient wisdom, showing its affinity with some Buddhist practices and indicating its contemporary relevance.

The John Main Seminar is an annual event designed to broaden & deepen the teaching of Christian Meditation. It brings together meditators from around the world & those wishing to discover the practice.

Pre-Seminar Retreat

Be Who You are

Led by Fr Laurence Freeman OSB / 13th-16th august

The Christian understanding of Jesus as the Word made flesh transforms the way we see our own humanity and also the natural world we are part of. "Nothing that is not against nature is against Christ" (Clement of Alexandria) - this liberating insight has to be more courageously embraced in our own time so that the mystery of Christ can become fully transformative. But this is not only a theological project. It begins - and finds its culmination - at the deeply personal level of experience. And this is why meditation in our own tradition is such a blessing and necessity - it opens us to the mystery of the inner Christ and to the cosmic Christ simultaneously. Our daily meditation leads us to self-knowledge and also gives us new words with which to understand and communicat the Word itself.

The John Main Seminar is a major event of the World Community hosted annually in different countries. In 2011 it was led by the English Dominican Timothy Radcliffe and hosted by the Irish Christian Meditation Community. The pre-Seminar retreat was led by Fr Laurence on "Fruits of Crisis".

For more information on the Seminar theme and the speaker visit: www.jms11.com.

320 meditators from 22 countries participated. Below, there are comments from some of the participants and the gallery of the seminar. Medio Media will be publishing the talks of the seminar shortly.

The roots of the Community lie in the desert tradition of early Christianity. In 1975 John Main started the first Christian Meditation Centre in London where the first of many weekly meditation groups began to meet. In 1991 the John Main Seminar was held in the old Utopian town of New Harmony, Indiana. It was led by Bede Griffiths and was the basis of his book The New Creation in Christ: Meditation and Community.

Meditators from many parts of the world came together on this occasion to discuss the future of the community that had been forming for many years already as a ‘monastery without walls’. They named it The World Community for Christian Meditation. The symbol of the Community is an ancient image that represents the union of the contemplative and active dimensions of life.